It was a blanket that brought me out of my cold fear. Not a fluffy, warm, cosy blanket but a thin comfortless rectangle of cotton designed to survive a high-temperature wash. But still, a blanket! The majority of patients in the intensive care ward at St Thomas’ hospital are far too sick for blankets. “He indicated that he was cold,” explained Simon’s latest nurse, unaware of the significance of what she was saying. After five weeks in a life-threatening coma, my 58-year-old husband had finally reconnected with the outside world. I was no longer facing years of loneliness, the loss of the person I love most in the world, or the possibility that his brain was so damaged he would never speak to me again.

It's World Encephalitis Day. But to survivors like me today is Look After Your Brain Day | Simon Hattenstone

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Like most people, I didn’t even know what encephalitis was when Simon fell ill. The previous day we’d been at the theatre, eating ice-cream, and two weeks later we were due to fly to Spain for a summer holiday. Instead, I found myself spending all and every day at his bedside in the intensive care unit of St Thomas’s hospital in London, trying to coax him back to life. In the chilly super-sanitised half-light of the ward, Simon’s body seemed halfway to a corpse. His brain was infected by an unknown virus, his body was attached to almost every kind of life support machine, and it felt as if his spirit was stranded on a distant shore or lost in a dark forest. In fact, Simon told me later that one of his few memories from this time – alongside looking down on his body from a great height – was of being chased, terrified and alone, through just such a forest.

The worst week was when Simon caught pneumonia. My brother, himself a doctor, had warned me that this is highly probable for anyone who spends more than a couple of weeks on artificial ventilation. But nothing could have prepared me for seeing my still-unconscious husband writhing in pain with a face the colour of bubble gum, or half choking as the nurse extracted litres of phlegm from his lungs. My tongue began to roll a new word around my mouth – bereavement – as I woke earlier and earlier each morning, coming to terms with the likelihood of a completely different future.

I’ve discovered, at first-hand, that happiness is about living each day as it comes

“Good luck with the hospital visiting,” said a friend. What she didn’t realise was that the hospital quickly becomes your natural environment, and it’s the rest of your life that you’re visiting. I found it deeply comforting to spend time with other families in crisis and to share our stories. At a lunchtime concert in the central hall of the hospital, a string trio began to play some of the Argentinian tango music that Simon and I had always loved. As I collapsed, sobbing, a family of three shyly approached me, asking if I needed a handkerchief. They told me their beaming toddler had just emerged from four months in intensive care following the successful transplant of a kidney from his father. Hospitals strip away all pretensions and disguises, bringing you closer to your fellow human beings than ever before.

Simon’s blanket marked the beginning of his recovery, but it wasn’t the end of the story. His body was thin and wasted, and he had to learn to eat, drink and walk all over again. For nearly a year his right arm was so swollen from all the injections that he couldn’t tie a shoelace or turn a key in the lock. The hardest aspect of his recovery was invisible though – the time it took for his emotional intelligence to reboot. Unlike physical illness, people who have experienced brain injury are often unaware of its effect on both them and the people around them. “I’m absolutely fine, completely recovered,” Simon would tell friends, while I desperately tried to cover up the chaos he left in his wake, such as repeatedly losing his debit card, phone and pin number.

One of the challenges of wife-as-carer is the effect it has on the subtle configuration and calibration of a marital relationship. The independent feminist who had signed up for a late marriage in which both parties pursued fulfilling careers and spent a few evenings together each week now found herself joined to her husband at the hip. And he wasn’t exactly the same man that I had married. One day I watched in shock as Simon, once the most patient and gentle of men, kicked a pile of DVDs across the room. Nobody had warned me that outbursts of anger and frustration are the frequent consequence of a brain illness or injury, and the medication given to alleviate it. “For better for worse,” I found myself muttering.

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Encephalitis can often result in death or permanent brain damage, so we have been extraordinarily lucky. Nearly six years on, Simon has made such a full recovery – miraculous, some say – that he has since become a university professor. My life has completely changed pace – we now live in the country, I work from home, no longer use an alarm clock, and prioritise spending time with family and friends. I’ve discovered, at first-hand, that happiness is about living each day as it comes, with as much kindness, calm and curiosity as I can muster.

One of our recurring themes is gratitude: to the amazing NHS staff who cared for Simon, to the family and friends who supported us, and for an experience that has deepened our relationship beyond measure. We still wake up in the morning feeling lucky to be alive and together.

• Bed 12 by Alison Murdoch is out now, published by Hikari Press, priced £9.99. 50% of the royalties will be donated to the Encephalitis Society